Illuminated travel make-up mirrors have found ready acceptance by women, particularly those who travel. A compact and light weight mirror is almost a necessity for women who wish to be well groomed on trips away from where they may have the proper facilities permitting the careful application of make-up. Too often, a hotel or other accommodation does not provide the necessary facilities because the mirror may be in an inconvenient place, such as above a dresser that does not provide for chairs to be brought close to the mirror or the available illumination may be too poor. A mirror in the bathroom may not be any better because it will be necessary to bend or crouch over the sink to somehow obtain the illumination adequate to avoid shadows on the face, or like problems.
Prior illuminated compact travel make-up mirrors, to a certain degree, obviate difficulties experienced above but there are drawbacks. Those mirrors which are battery operated have not gained the confidence of many women because in some instances the batteries are quickly drained or exhausted after a relatively short period of time. There is no worst annoyance then finding the mirror not useable because of dead batteries, especially when you are away from home and unable to quickly purchase the batteries.
Some prior mirrors reduce the drain on the batteries by underpowering the lamps to extend the operating life of the battery, but this has the concomitant drawback that a low level and inadequate illumination occurs, again to the annoyance of the user. There is a difficult compromise to make because it is known that as the light rays of an incandescent bulb leave the filament there is a scattering or diffusion of the rays and though it may illuminate the area adjacent the mirror to some extent, it does not focus the illumination where it should be, that is, on the object to be illuminated.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel, compact, and lightweight illuminated travel mirror which provides illumination of sufficient intensity to assist in obtaining and effecting a careful application of make-up.
It is another object to provide a make-up mirror which utilizes means for focusing and constraining light rays from illumination sources to provide areas of high intensity illumination on the face of a user.
It is a further object to provide a make-up mirror in which the light rays from illumination sources are positively directed along intersecting paths and planes to intersect or meet beyond the face of the user, at a locus, at a calculated distance from the mirror.
It is a still further object to provide a mirror in which front and rear hinged covers are unfolded to permit the mirror to be self supporting on a flat surface.
Another object is to provide a battery powered illuminated make-up mirror which maximizes the effective life of the batteries while at the same time providing effective high intensity illumination.
A still further object is to provide a novel make-up mirror with two kinds of light intensity and spectral color so as to simulate bright day lighting conditions as where fluorescent lighting is used, and on the other hand night-time lighting conditions, as where incandescent bulbs are used, in order to enable proper make-up as others would see the user's face under both conditions.
Another object is to provide a travel make-up mirror at low cost by constructing it from a relatively small number of simple, injection-molded parts.